Quotes About Connection

Think of how detached we are from nature. How we have to do so much to it before we can bottle it and put the name 'wild' on it.

he believed that the more people were connected on social media, the lonelier society became. 'That's why everyone hates each other nowadays,' he reckoned. 'Because they are overloaded with non-friend friends. Ever heard about Dunbar's number?

When we feel or experience terrible things, it is useful to remember that nothing lasts. Perspective shifts. We become different versions of ourselves. The hardest question I have ever been asked is: "How do I stay alive for other people if I have no one?" The answer is that you stay alive for other versions of you. For the people you will meet, yes, sure, but also the people you will be.

I traveled with my work. I went to Paris, Boston, Rome, São Paolo, Berlin, Madrid, Tokyo. I wanted to fill my mind with human faces, in order to forget Isobel's. But I achieved the opposite effect. By studying the entire human species, I felt more toward her specifically. By thinking of the cloud, I thirsted for the raindrop.

If, as Schopenhauer said, "we forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people," then love—at its best—is a way to reclaim those lost parts of ourselves. That freedom we lost somewhere quite early in childhood. Maybe love is just about finding the person you can be your weird self with.

And that had led to them talking about social media – he believed that the more people were connected on social media, the lonelier society became.

History is people. Everyone loves history.' Daphne looks at me doubtfully, her face retreating into her neck as her eyebrows rise. 'Are you sure about that?' I offer a small nod. 'It's just making them realise that everything they say and do and see is only what they say and do and see because of what has gone before. Because of Shakespeare. Because of every human who ever lived.

I click through her photos.

The past resides inside the present, repeating hiccuping, reminding you of all the stuff that no longer is. It bleeds out from road signs and plaques on park benches and songs and surnames and faves and the covers of books.

That is the biggest paradox, I think, about the modern world. We are all connected to each other but we often feel shut out. The increasing overload and complexity of modern life can be isolating.

Kissing is what humans do when words have reached a place they can't escape from. It is a switch to another language. The kiss was an act of defiance, maybe of war. You can't touch us, is what the kiss said.

A happy entanglement of warm limbs and warmer love. A physical and psychological merging that conjured a kind of inner light, a bio-emotional phosphorescence that was overwhelming in its gorgeousness.

My aunt used to tell me that books are just trees that are having a dream.

For centuries I have thought all my despair is grief. But people get over grief. They get over even the most serious grief in a matter of years. If not get over then at least live beside. And the way they do this is by investing in other people, through friendship, through family, through teaching, through love. I have been approaching this realisation for some time now.

what is the point of living when you have no one to live for?

We can look at the world through more than one lens. If we look at people through the lens of emotion, at the feelings that drive opinions, rather than the opinions themselves, it's easy to see the things we share. The hopes, the fears, the loves, the insecurities, the longings, the doubts, the dreams. Other people can be wrong, and we can be wrong, and that is another thing we have in common. The capacity for fucking up. And for forgiving.

Kissing was very like eating. But instead of reducing the appetite, the food consumed actually increased it.

Edith Wharton was the wisest person ever on lineliness. She believed the cure for it wasn't always to have company, but to find a way to be happy with your owwn company.

loved her, instantly. Of course, most parents love their children instantly. But I mention it here because I still find it a remarkable thing. Where was that love before? Where did you acquire it from? The way it is suddenly there, total and complete, as sudden as grief, but in reverse, is one of the wonders about being human.

Well, you don't see yourself as a bad cat owner any more. You looked after him as well as he could have been looked after. He loved you as much as you loved him, and maybe he didn't want you to see him die. You see, cats know. They understand when their time is up. He went outside becuase he was going to die, and he knew it.

Music simply uncovers what is there, makes you feel emotions that you didn't necessarily know you had inside you, and runs around waking them all up.

You were there before it. And the cloud can't exist without the sky, but the sky can exist without the cloud.

Because in one universe you have always been there. The book will never be returned, so to speak. It becomes less of a loan and more of a gift.

una suerte de divinidad doméstica también conocida como «perro»)